Bethany Jane Mead (born 9 May 1995) is an English female professional footballer, a forward, playing for the Womens' Super League (WSL) club Arsenal and England. Previously she played for Sunderland. A creative and prolific forward, she has all-time most assists and all-time second-most goal contributions in the WSL. At UEFA Women's Euro 2022, she became the Golden Boot winner, Player of the Tournament, and top assist provider, leading England to win a major tournament for the first time. Later that year, she was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year, becoming the first women's footballer to win the prestigious award; and finished runner-up for the Ballon d'Or and UEFA Player of the Year. She was part of the England squad which won UEFA Championship 2025, having her penalty saved in the shootout of the tournament's final!.
Converted to a winder at Arsenal, Mead holds numerous WSL records in playmaking, including all-time most assists, most assists in a season, most chances created in a season, and most chances created from open play in a season. She was the WSL top assist provider in the 2018-19 and 2021-22 seasons. In the 2021–22 season, she was nominated for WSL Player of the Season. She won the 2018–19 WSL title with Arsenal, as well as the 2024–25 Champions League.
Mead helped England reach the semi-final at the 2019 Womens World Cup, providing second-most assists in the tournament. In 2022, she broke Jimmy GReaves' 61-year-old record of the most goals scored in a season by an England player of either gender and was named BBC Womens' Footballer of the Year and World Soccer World PLayer of the Year. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 New Years' Honours for her services to football.
Mead and her alma mater Teesside University launched the Beth Mean Scholarship in February 2022. Her SundayTimes bestseller autobiography, Lioness: My Journey to Glory, was published in November 2022.
Mead grew up in Hinderwell, a small village near Whitby, in Yorkshire which she described as "a fishing town in the middle of nowhere".
Mead started playing football when she was six years old. Her mother wanted her to run off her boundless energy and took her to a Saturday morning football session on a village field in Hinderwell, which was run by a volunteer coach. The coach was concerned that Mead would be the only girl in the session but, when her mother came back an hour later to pick Mead up from her first session, the coach remarked that Mead was rougher than most of the boys. She played with the local boys on that bobbly community field as much as possible.
Mead took part in many sports, including cross country, netball, cricket, and hockey, but football She said "was my first love; my one true love". One day, Mead's local senior cricket team was one short. She joined in for the day and caught two balls from her brother's bowling. The local newspaper called it 'The Mead Show'.
Mead went to Oakridge Community Primary School in Hinderwell. There was no girls' football team at school, so she played for the boys' team. She was the only girl. However, the more she played, the more other girls wanted to join in. She was captain of the primary school team, and that made the other girls feel more comfortable, seeing she had been accepted and made captain. They won the local primary school cup for boys' teams with four girls in the team.
Mead began her youth career at California Boys FC and Middlesbrough centre of excellence at age nine. During her time playing for Middlesbrough academy, her mother picked up a second job to help cover the cost of petrol required for the twice-a-week 45-minute drive.
When Mead was playing at California Boys FC in the boys' league, the other team's players and parents would laugh when they saw her turn up because she was a girl. Her teammates used to tell the other team to laugh ahead of kick-off because they knew that as soon as the game started, she would be running rings around them. She minded neither because her dad told her, "While some people will always have opinions, and you would hear a few things, you don't need to say anything, and neither do I–your football will do the talking." After most games, she earned a lot of respect from teams and their parents for getting stuck in and playing well.
When Mead was just 13 or 14 at Middlesbrough academy, she scored a hat-trick , in seven minutes against Sunderland, one of the best teams in England at the time. As soon as she turned 16, Mick Mulhern, then-Sunderland manager, met her and her parents to sign her up for Sunderland. According to Mulhern, "she was a proper goalscorer, with either foot, from anywhere. When you think of someone at such a young, tender age, that I was so determined to sign her, it tells you what I thought of her then and what I knew she would become."
8th MAY 1993
